Part 26

FACTORY ACTS, Acts passed for the regulation of factories and similar establishments. Considering that women and children were not qualified fully to protect themselves against the strain of competition, the British legislature has passed a series of Acts to regulate the conditions of their employment in factories. The immediate occasion of the first Act passed to regulate factory employment in England was the outbreak of an epidemic disease which committed great havoc among the younger persons employed in factories in the district round Manchester at the beginning of the nineteenth century. An Act was passed (1802) in which provision was made for the regular cleansing and ventilation of mills and factories, and also for limiting the hours of labour to twelve daily. In 1819 an Act followed which prescribed an hour and a half for meals in the course of a working day, and prohibited children under nine years of age being employed in factory work at all. Various Acts were passed up to 1878, when a general Factory and Workshop Act was passed, consolidating the previous series of statutes. Its scope was extended by a further series of enactments, until in the year 1901 the last general Act was passed, which consolidates and amends all previous legislation. The Act contains general provisions regarding drainage, sanitary conveniences, overcrowding, ventilation, fencing of dangerous machinery, &c. Factories are distinguished from workshops as making use of steam or other mechanical power. In textile factories the hours of labour for women and young persons (the latter between 14 and 18 years of age) are restricted to 10, but only 6-1/2 on Saturday and 56 in the week. In non-textile factories and workshops the hours may be 10-1/2 per day and 60 per week at most. Children (of 12 to 14 years) were not allowed to be employed more than 6-1/2 hours on any one day. (The Education Acts now prohibit almost entirely the employment of 'school children' in factories and workshops.) Provision is made for a certain number of annual holidays. Special provisions for particular kinds of factories are made, and under these the employment of females and young persons is regulated in bleaching- and dyeing-works, lace-factories, manufactories of earthenware, lucifer matches, percussion caps, cartridges, blast-furnaces, copper-mills, forges, foundries, manufactories of machinery, metal, india-rubber, gutta-percha, paper, glass, tobacco, letterpress printing, bookbinding, &c. The Act of 1901 included laundries carried on by way of trade or for the purposes of gain. An Act of 1907 extended the Act of 1901 to laundries carried on as ancillary to another business or incidentally to the purposes of any public institution. A short Act passed in 1911 gave power to make regulations applicable to cotton-cloth factories. Certain exceptions in regard to working over-time are provided for; thus women may sometimes work 14 hours a day. So far there has been no direct interference in any of the Factory Acts with the labour of adult male persons; but it is obvious that indirectly the position of the male labourer also is affected by legislation of this sort.

FAC'ULAE (Lat. _facula_, a torch), bright markings on the sun's disc, i.e. portions more brilliant than the general surface. They are supposed to be parts of the luminous surface, or photosphere, which are elevated to a greater height, and therefore suffer less absorption of their light in its passage through the overlying gases and vapours. Like the spots, they are in a state of constant change, and exhibit a similar periodicity in numbers and extent.

FACULTIES, COURT OF, in English law, a jurisdiction or tribunal belonging to the archbishop. It does not hold pleas in any suits, but has power to grant licences or dispensations, such as, to marry without banns, or to remove bodies previously buried.

FACULTY, the members, taken collectively, of the medical or legal professions; thus we speak of the medical faculty, and (in Scotland) of the faculty of advocates. The term is also used for the professors and teachers collectively of the several departments in a university; as, the faculty of arts, of theology, of medicine, or of law.

FACULTY, in law, is a power to do something, the right to do which the law admits, or a special privilege granted by law to do something which would otherwise be forbidden.

FAECES, the excrementitious part evacuated by animals. It varies, of course, with different species of animals, according to their diet. The main constituents are unassimilable parts of the food, on which the digestive process has no effect, and other portions, quite nutritious, but which have escaped digestion, also certain waste matters, &c. In disease the composition varies extremely.

FAED (f[=a]d), John, R.S.A., artist, born in Kirkcudbrightshire in 1820, died in 1902. He showed artistic talent at an early age, and in 1841 went to Edinburgh to study. Some years later he acquired a considerable reputation, and was elected to the Royal Scottish Academy in 1851. Among his principal works are: _Shakespeare and his Contemporaries_; _An Incident of Scottish Justice_; _The Morning after Flodden_; _A Wappenshaw_; two series of drawings illustrating _The Cotter's Saturday Night_ and _The Soldier's Return_; _John Anderson, My Jo_; _Auld Mare Maggie_; _The Gamekeeper's Daughter_; _The Hiring Fair_.

FAED, Thomas, R.A., younger brother of the preceding, born at the same place in 1826, died in 1900. He studied in Edinburgh, where at an early age he became known as a clever painter of rustic subjects. In 1852 he settled in London, where he won a high reputation. The subjects he painted are for the most part domestic or pathetic, and in these he invented and told his own story, and that with a success that emulates Wilkie. Among his principal works are: _Sir Walter Scott and his Friends_ (1849), _The Mitherless Bairn_ (1855), _The First Break in the Family_ (1857), _Sunday in the Backwoods_ (1859), _His Only Pair_ (1860), _From Dawn to Sunset_ (1861), _The Last o' the Clan_ (1865). A number of Faed's works have been engraved in large size, and have been very popular.

FAENZA (f[.a]-en'za), an episcopal city of N. Italy, in the province of and 19 miles south-west of Ravenna. It is supposed to have been the first Italian city in which the earthenware called _faience_ (q.v.) was introduced. The manufacture still flourishes here, and there is also a considerable trade in spinning and weaving silk. Pop. (commune), 40,164.

FAGACEAE, a nat. ord. of apetalous Dicotyledons, all trees and shrubs, mostly natives of temperate regions. It includes the beeches and oaks, and the sweet chestnut (Castanea).

FAGGING, a custom which formerly prevailed generally at most of the English schools, and is still practised at Eton, Winchester, Harrow, Rugby, and one or two other places. It consists in making the junior boys act as servants or 'fags' in the performance of multifarious menial offices for elder boys, such as carrying messages or preparing breakfast for their master, in return for which the elder boy accepts a certain responsibility for keeping order, and becomes the recognized adviser and protector of his 'fags'.

FAGGOT-VOTE, a term formerly applied in Britain to a vote procured by the purchase of property so as to constitute a nominal qualification without a substantial basis. Faggot-votes were chiefly used in county elections for members of Parliament. The way in which they were usually manufactured was by the purchase of a property which was divided into as many lots as would constitute separate votes, and given to different persons, who need not be resident members of the constituency. The practice disappeared after the Reform Act of 1884.

FAGUET, Emile, French literary historian, critic, and journalist, born at La Roche-sur-Yon in 1847, died in 1916. He became professor of poetry at the Sorbonne in 1897. Endowed with a keen power of analysis and a wealth of original ideas, he was one of the most brilliant French critics of the nineteenth century. Whilst praising the literature of the seventeenth century, Faguet somewhat depreciated the writers of the eighteenth century. Among his numerous works are: _Le theatre contemporain_ (1880-91), _Dix-huitieme siecle_ (1890), _Seizieme siecle_ (1893), _Drame ancien et drame moderne_ (1898), _Histoire de la litterature francaise_ (1900), _Propos litteraires_ (1902), _Initiation into Literature_, and _Initiation into Philosophy_.

FAGUS. See _Beech_.

FAHLERZ (fael'erts), or grey copper ore, is of a steel-grey or iron-black colour. It occurs crystallized in the form of the tetrahedron, also massive and disseminated. Its fracture is uneven or imperfectly conchoidal. Specific gravity, 4.5-5.1. _Tetrahedrite_, the typical species, is composed of copper, sulphur, and antimony. Part of the copper is often replaced by iron, zinc, silver, or mercury, and part of the antimony by arsenic.

FAHLUNITE, a mineral of a greenish colour occurring in six-sided prisms. It is a pseudomorph after iolite, and consists mainly of hydrous aluminium silicate. It takes its name from Fahlun in Sweden.

FAHRENHEIT (fae'r[.e]n-h[=i]t), Gabriel Daniel, German physicist, known for his arrangement of the thermometer, was born at Danzig in 1686, died in 1736. Abandoning the commercial profession for which he had been designed, he settled in Holland to study natural philosophy. In 1720 he effected a great improvement by the use of quicksilver instead of spirits of wine in thermometers. He invented the Fahrenheit scale (see _Thermometer_), and made several valuable discoveries in physics. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1724.

FAIDHERBE (f[=a]-derb), Louis Leon Cesar, a French general, born in 1818, died in 1889. He entered the army in 1840, served in Africa and the West Indies, was appointed Governor of Senegal in 1854, and afterwards of a district in Algiers from 1867 to 1870. After the fall of Napoleon III, he was summoned by the Government of the National Defence to France and appointed commander of the army of the north. He fought some bloody but indecisive battles with the Germans under Manteuffel and Goeben. After the war he was elected to the Assembly by Lille, his native place, but on the triumph of Thiers retired from politics to private life. He wrote _Epigraphie Phenicienne_, and valuable monographs on Senegal, the Sudan, and other parts of Africa.

FAIENCE (f[.a]-yens'), imitation porcelain, a kind of fine pottery, superior to the common pottery in its glazing, beauty of form, and richness of painting. Several kinds of faience are distinguished by critics. It derived its name from the town of Faenza, in Italy, where a fine sort of pottery called _majolica_ was manufactured as early as the fourteenth century. The majolica reached its greatest perfection between 1530 and 1560. In the Louvre, the Musee de Cluny, the British and Victoria and Albert Museums, at Berlin, and at Dresden are rich collections of it. The modern faience appears to have been invented about the middle of the sixteenth century, at Faenza, as an imitation of majolica, and obtained its name in France, where a man from Faenza, having discovered a similar kind of clay at Nevers, had introduced the manufacture of it. True faience is made of a yellowish or ruddy earth, covered with an enamel which is usually white, but may be coloured. This enamel is a glass rendered opaque by oxide of tin or other suitable material, and is intended not only to glaze the body, but to conceal it entirely. See _Pottery_.--Cf. M. L. Solon, _The Old French Faience_.

FAILLY (f[.a]-y[=e]), Pierre Louis Charles Achille de, French general, born in 1810, died in 1892. He distinguished himself in the Crimean War, and commanded a division against the Austrians in 1859. He was the means of introducing the Chassepot rifle into the French army, and commanded the troops which dispersed Garibaldi's irregulars at Mentana. At the outbreak of the Franco-German War Failly received the command of the 5th Corps, but was very unfortunate or unskilful in his organization of operations. His masterly inactivity in the early weeks of the war caused great popular indignation in France. Sedan ended his career as a soldier.

FAILSWORTH, a town of England, in Lancashire, 4 miles north-east of Manchester, with cotton-mills. Silk-weaving and hat-making are also carried on. Pop. 16,972.

FAINEANTS (f[=a]-n[=a]-[.a][n.]; Fr., 'do-nothings'), a sarcastic epithet applied to the later Merovingian kings of France, who were puppets in the hands of the mayors of the palace. Louis V, the last of the Carlovingian dynasty, received the same designation.

FAINTING, or SYNCOPE, a sudden suspension of the heart's action, of sensation, and the power of motion. It may be produced by loss of blood, pain, emotional disturbance, or organic or other diseases of the heart. It is to be treated by placing the patient on his back in a recumbent position or even with head slightly depressed, sprinkling cold water on his face, applying stimulant scents to the nostrils, or anything which tends to bring back the blood to the brain. The admission of fresh cool air and the loosening of any tight articles of dress are important.

FAIRBAIRN, Patrick, Scottish theologian, born 1805, died 1874. He became a minister of the Established Church, but joined the Free Church at the disruption in 1843. In 1853 he was appointed professor of divinity in the Free Church College, Aberdeen, and in 1856 principal of the Free Church College, Glasgow. Among his works are: _Typology of Scripture_; _Jonah: his Life, Character, and Mission_; _Ezekiel_; _Prophecy_; _Hermeneutical Manual_; _Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul_. He edited and wrote extensively for the _Imperial Bible Dictionary_.

FAIRBAIRN, Sir William, British civil engineer, born at Kelso, Roxburghshire, in 1789, died 18th Aug., 1874. He was apprenticed as an engine-wright at a colliery in North Shields, and commenced business on his own account in Manchester with James Lillie in 1817, where he made many improvements in machinery, such as the use of iron instead of wood in the shafting of cotton-mills. About 1831, his attention having been attracted to the use of iron as a material for shipbuilding, he built the first iron ship. His firm became extensively employed in iron shipbuilding at Manchester and at Millwall, London, and had a great share in the development of the trade. He shares with Stephenson the merit of constructing the great tubular bridge across the Menai Strait. Fairbairn was one of the earliest members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, of which he was president in 1861 and 1862. He was created a baronet in 1869. Sir William wrote many valuable professional books and papers, amongst which are: _On Canal Steam Navigation_ (1831); _Iron: its History, Properties, and Manufacture_ (1841); _Application of Iron to Building Purposes_ (1854); _Iron Ship-building_ (1865). His brother Sir Peter, born 1799, died 1861, had also great mechanical ability, and founded large machine-works at Leeds.

FAIRFAX, Edward, the translator into English verse of Tasso's _Jerusalem Delivered_, was the natural son of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton, and born in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. He settled at Newhall, in the parish of Fewston, Yorkshire, to a life of studious leisure. The first edition of his translation bears the date of 1600. One or two eclogues by him also remain. He died in 1635.

FAIRFAX, Thomas, Lord, parliamentary general during the English Civil War, born in 1611 at Denton, in Yorkshire, died at Nun Appleton, Yorkshire, 12th Nov., 1671. He was the son and heir of Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax, to whose title and estates he succeeded in 1648. After serving in the Netherlands with some reputation, he returned to England, and on the rupture between Charles I and the Parliament joined the forces of the latter. In 1642 he was appointed General of the Horse, and two years later held a chief command in the army sent to co-operate with the Scots. In 1645, on the resignation of the Earl of Essex, Fairfax became general-in-chief of the Parliamentary army. After the victory at Naseby he marched into the western counties, quelling all opposition, put down the insurgents in Kent and Essex in 1647, and captured Colchester. In April, 1649, he was occupied along with Cromwell in suppressing revolt in the army; but positively declined to march against the Scottish Presbyterians. He was a member of Cromwell's first Parliament. He co-operated in the restoration of Charles II, being one of the committee charged to secure his return.

FAIRFORD, a town in Gloucestershire, England, 8 miles east by south of Cirencester, with a church the twenty-eight windows of which are filled with beautiful stained glass, formerly ascribed to Albert Duerer, but now known to have been designed and executed in England. Fairford was the birth-place of John Keble. Pop. 1410.

FAIR HEAD, a basaltic promontory on the north coast of Ireland, County Antrim, rising to the height of 636 feet.